A Brief History of Saint Laurent’s “Mono-Boob” Dress

Among the slinky, sultry, and sheer dresses parading down the catwalk at Anthony Vaccarello'sSaint Laurent debut was one that stood out from the pack. We're talking about Binx Walton's strapless dress that left her left breast bare, save for a glittery pasty. And though Walton wasn't exposed—you'd have to look to her model compadres in sheer blouses for a more revealing ensemble—the minidress still oozed pure sex, wrapped around the body like a post-coitus sheet. You know, if your sheets happen to be made of buttery black leather.

It's also not the first time Saint Laurent bared a breast at one of its runway shows. Lida Fox wore a similar black minidress that only covered one of her breasts at YSL's Fall 2015 show by Hedi Slimane. Fox, however, was sans pasty. "We always called it the mono-boob dress," Fox said to Vogue Runway at the time. “I think that now was the perfect time for the dress, though, with the whole Free the Nipple movement and the increasing exposure of feminism,” she continued.

But before there was Hedi there was Yves, who included in his Spring 1990 collection a toga dress that revealed a model's bare breast. New York magazine called the dress fashion's "scandale du jour." Here's to Vaccarello keeping a bit of scandal alive.